Brazilians have elevated names to an art form as playful and magical as their music and dance. Brazilians see naming a baby as an opportunity to have fun. Names become talismans; badges of creativity and individualism. Names tell short stories about the dazzling blend of cultures that makes up this society, the layers of superstition and inequality, the tolerance and snobbery, dreams and improvisation.
And we have an extraordinarily rich oral tradition. Brazilians are always inventing words. Many names are given simply because the parents like the sound. There are parallels in other Latin American nations. Just across the border from Southern California, in Tijuana, for example, a glance at a newspaper turns up the likes of Dante, Espartaco, Galileo, Hodin, Cuauhtemoc and Odilon.
Advertisement In Brazil, however, almost anything goes. The freewheeling mentality contrasts with the policies of neighboring nations such as Argentina, where the repressive legacy of Spanish colonists lingers. The bureaucracy maintains a list of acceptable names--mostly of classic Roman Catholic-Spanish origin--which exudes the authority of a sacred document.
Until last week, when federal authorities decided to loosen the restrictions, Argentine parents who picked for their baby a name that was not on the list risked the disconcerting experience of having a haughty clerk reject their choice and send them home to think up an acceptable one.
Officialdom here in Rio is far less uptight. Names Too Long Even for Computers The white-haired, rumpled Quintanilha has worked 51 years in the windowless, street-front office, with its dusty volumes lining shelves and the continuous murmur of computer printers. Asked about any rules governing names, he smiled ruefully over his spectacles like a schoolteacher caught in the middle of a food fight. Although he tries to share his expertise, parents insist on phonetic versions, and delight in inserting the letters K, W and Y, which are not used in Portuguese, the language spoken in Brazil.
